


(touch)

by theredhoodie



Series: (snapshots) [1]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Domestic OT3, F/M, Fluff, Post Season 3 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8722249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: Kate is finally ready to face Richie's fangs and scales one sunny afternoon amidst the search for a missing shoe.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first in presumably many short drabble/ficlets that I want to write but have no full plot for (aka snapshots of the characters' lives)! Most will be post S3 following canon, there will be multiple ships and characters followed but like all within the same post-canon universe so to speak, so they're all likely to be somewhat connected but not in a way where you have to read each of them. I'll be tagging what each one is in the tags and also here in the author notes before each fic!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Post-S3 finale. Richie/Kate, a little domestic ot3 in the mix.

Just because Kate decided to go with the Geckos, didn’t mean that everything was smooth sailing. One of the biggest hurdles was Richie being, well, not entirely human. Seth may have gotten used to the fanged and scaly face of Richard’s culebra form, but it took a little longer for Kate to get accustomed to it.

So, to make it easier on everyone, Richie normally kept it hidden around Kate, which mean he normally kept it hidden around Seth too. It wasn’t that big of a problem. They were away from the world of culebra now, los hermanos Geckos plus one, and he used it only to intimidate or when he was feeling peckish.

But Kate, God-loving and faithful Kate, could learn to love all of the parts of the Geckos that they had to offer. She found out that the brothers being together made them much more stable than when they were apart. And that was a good start.

Seth was off getting food, which, as per usual, involved going to three different places because they all wanted Americanized-ethnic food from different corners of the world. Their current home base was spacious and mostly empty, minimalistic to the point of having a single dining room and three chairs, one couch and a TV on a simple stand, and three beds spread throughout the other rooms. No artwork, no photos, no extra pillows floating around or nick-nacks in the corner.

It suited Kate just fine, since they moved every few months for fresh air and to see if they could actually  _settle_. Now, the shades were mostly drawn, Richie stepped around the beams of light if he ventured off the couch, and Kate darted around like a wind-up toy.

“Will you  _please_  just relax? You’re distracting me,” Richie said, pointedly leaning forward to aim the remote at the screen and turn up the volume even though he had  _culebra_  ears and really didn’t need it.

Kate sighed. She was in torn up mom-jeans with the bottoms rolled up and a pink t-shirt that was too big and constantly slipped off her shoulder, revealing tanned white skin dusted with freckles from the sun. Her hair was pulled to a mess at the top of her head. She was currently searching for one of her two favorite kitten-heeled pumps that she wore on heists.

“I can’t help it,” she insisted, pausing to put her hand on her forehead and look around the living room expecting the shoe to pop up out of nowhere. “How do you lose  _one_  shoe?”

Richie sighed. It was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to watch his show in peace, so he turned down the volume and looked up at Kate standing in the bright sunlight that cut him off from the kitchen unless he wanted to feel his skin burning for half a second. If he concentrated enough he could be under the sun for a minute at most without burning, which helped with gigs during the day, but at home, he tended to keep his energy stored up for other things.

“One shoe,” Kate repeated, shaking her head. She tossed her hands out to her sides and gave up.

“Come here,” Richie said, motioning her toward the couch with the remote. “I’ll look for it later.”

She was feeling riled up from a simple missing shoe so maybe a little down time would do her good. She walked toward him—he, unlike her, looked completely put together, owning nothing other than his suits and dress shirts and nice ties, and it was mildly irritating, especially when at least Seth owned a pair of  _jeans_ —and, with a dramatic sigh, flopped down next to him.

Richie reached over, sliding his cool hand against the back of her neck. Kate wanted to stay riled up and fiery, but it was hard to when he pressed his fingers against her neck in a comforting massage, one that he did often. It was as if he’d found her off switch.

“Whatcha watching?” she asked once she accepted defeat.

“Some crime show.”

“To get ideas?” Kate teased.

Richie looked offended. “No. To make their stupid ideas  _work_.”

She rolled her eyes and brought her legs up on the couch. Much like a cat, she forcefully scooted closer to him, put her legs over his lap, and curled against his side. It wasn’t entirely comfortable or uncomfortable, but it suited her to be needy just then.

His magical massaging fingers swept down her spine and rested on her hip.

Richie stared at the TV and she stared at him. Both of them were quiet, with Kate fidgeting only occasionally. He eventually put a hand over her ankles to stop her feet from jiggling around.

She still stared at his profile, blinking only when her eyes got too dry to keep open any longer.

“What is it?” he finally asked.

“Show me,” she said, her voice quieter than minutes before.

“Show you what?”

Why did she feel like she was suddenly in the back of the Titty Twister on the day they first met? Their conversation then had been speedy, like watching a tennis match, and he kept answering her with questions. Hopeful that they were was past that stage, Kate lifted her hand and let her fingertips hover over his skin. “I want to see what you look like,” she said finally.

“You have eyes.”

“Richie.”

He sighed and turned away from the screen. Their faces were awfully close and she dropped her hand into her lap. “Why? It’s just gonna scare you.”

“You don’t scare me anymore,” she insisted. Kate felt like her entire life at this moment in time was on  _edge_  but after everything she had been through, she found it difficult to get full-on scared anymore. She had been through too much to be frightened of a single culebra, especially one she chose to be around.

Richie looked at her—really looked at her, in that unnerving way that, by anyone’s account, should have been uncomfortable, but Kate didn’t mind. She looked right back, wondering what he was seeing in her, what he was looking for.

Whatever it was, he must have seen something convincing because she blinked and his face changed. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a culebra shift from human to beast, but never so intimately and never, ever in an environment where she felt safe.

It was accompanied with a sound, like a distant shaking of a rattlesnake tail, and there was the slightest of shivers over Richie’s body as he shifted that she only felt because she was pressed up against him.

Kate let out a small breath of air and looked with honesty—as she’d always done and always would—that was buried too far deep inside of her to shake. He still looked like himself. The fangs made snarling sort of instinctive, the scales covered his skin, creeping down his neck—she wondered how far it went since his hands looked human still—and his eyes were not that of a human, and yet…

She lifted her hand, tiny—something Seth often commented on when she first tried using his massive hand cannon and found it impossible—and human to his face. The pads of her fingers brushed over warm scales that were very similar to a snake’s, but also with something alien about them. She pulled off his glasses and dropped them into her lap so she could run her fingers along his brow, down his nose, across his cheeks, like she was a blind sculptor.

Richie closed his eyes after a minute, feeling nothing but Kate’s small hand against his face, her body pressed against his, radiating heat. A low, purring growl reverberated in his chest.

Kate ran her thumb over his bottom lip, wary of the tips of his fangs, and decided that he was kind of beautiful like this.

She added her other hand to the mix, pressing her palm against his lightly scaled neck and stroking her fingertips under his jaw.

The front door banged open and, as Richie turned his head in surprise at the intrusion, his face flawlessly and instantly reverted back to human flesh.

Seth stood there, juggling bags of food and a six-pack of beer. He cursed when he almost dropped the bottles and then spotted Richie and Kate on the couch. They were cozy, looked a tiny bit too relaxed, and here he was, struggling like his life depending on it.

“Sorry to interrupt, but how about a little  _help_ ,” he barked out, shuffling toward the kitchen table.

Kate spun and let her feet touch the floor. Pushing herself off the couch, she handed Richie his glasses, stood and stretched her arms above her head. Richie joined her and they met Seth at the table. He laid out cartons, pointing and labeling everything too quickly for them to catch up. Kate leaned into Richie’s side ever so slightly and he put his hand against the back of her neck.

“And uh…shit, what the fuck is this?” Seth broke the secretly tranquil moment between the other two as he opened the last container.

“Smells like chicken,” Kate said quickly.

“I’ll take it,” Richie swooped in, using his unnaturally annoying height to claim whatever the dish was.

Kate looked over the spread and picked out what she wanted. Walking into the kitchen to grab a fork that wasn’t plastic, she spotted her shoe in the corner. How had she missed that? Shaking her head, she rejoined the brothers at the table, where they stabbed at each other’s cartons of food and got into trysts over what was the proper order to eat everything in: Thai, Italian, and Greek, or Greek, Italian, and Thai?


End file.
